


No Metaphor

by lacygrey



Category: Night at the Museum (Movies)
Genre: First Kiss, M/M, Missing Scene, NatM3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-16
Updated: 2015-07-16
Packaged: 2018-04-09 14:04:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4351685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lacygrey/pseuds/lacygrey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What happens on the journey back to New York.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Metaphor

**No Metaphor**

It doesn't feel like a victory. There's no air of a triumphant homecoming.

The debate on how long it will take Ahkmenrah to miss New York and come on back over to see them wanes long before they reach Heathrow. Now, Larry and Nicky have taken their leave and the company are waiting for the container to be loaded into the airplane. Though Octavius cannot see Jedediah in the darkness, he’s close by and it’s clear he’s is restless. Every time he shifts, the packing peanuts creak.  Finally, he speaks.

 “Nicky said they got like a contraption what’s gonna know there’s somebody in the crate, they don’t want nobody on the plane who’s not got theirselves a ticket.”

When they'd arrived in London it had been daytime.  With everyone inanimate there was no risk of discovery.  But now?

“I don’t think that’s going to be a problem for us lad. Just a bit of wax and magic won’t upset the machine.”

And it turns out that Teddy is right. They stay quiet and still, Dexter held in Attila’s firm grip.  It’s not clear whether the capucin is genuinely calm or petrified with fright. The container arrives unhindered in the hold.

All is dark; all is silent. Then there is a crunch, slow chewing sounds and a slow ‘Mmm’ of satisfaction.  Then another crunch, and another...

“Hey. Laa. That’s supposed to be for keeping us safe, warm, y’know. You can’t eat it. They’ll be none left.”

Jed’s reasoning doesn’t seem to be having much effect, but the crunching and peels of monkey laughter are drowned out by the engines, muffling their voices and hiding anything that might have revealed them. They relax again.

There’s a strange tenseness they all try to ignore or chase away. Beneath the hum of the plane, Octavius thinks he hears Attila singing softly. And Teddy talking, but not in any language he recognizes. He wonders if he’s dreaming. Then he catches Wea’s voice too and realizes that this must be her language.  She’s taught him her language. They’ve created their own little world. 

Then, he thinks he feels Jed move closer to him. He doesn’t realize how close until he feels the other man’s arm brush against his own.

Jed never seems to do that kind of thing deliberately, but that’s not to say that he never touches Octavius, quite the contrary.  He nudges, bangs shoulders and stands too close, well not too close for Octavius, but closer than could be said to be merely amicable.  It must be so natural for him that he doesn’t notice himself doing it, for, when it’s Octavius who tries, Jed gets self-conscious and pulls away.

That’s why what he does now, here in the absolute darkness, comes as such a shock.   He abruptly takes Octavius’ hand and plants it flat in the middle of his own chest.

Octavius knows neither what to say nor do.  The last hours the longest he has ever been awake. They feel like the longest he’s ever lived, so filled as they’ve been with strange, new and terrifying things that he thought nothing more could surprise him.

“What do you feel?” Jed’s dropped his voice low, surely just to avoid being overheard, but it's transformed his words into a seductive whisper.

Octavius can only feel his own heart pounding at this sudden and voluntary closeness. Without any chance of reading Jed’s expression in the dark, no way of telling the implication of his words, he tries to collect himself enough to answer. He can feel the fabric of Jed’s shirt.  It has a soft, fine quality, like a weave only the high classes of society would wear, it’s not silk but has a smoothness that must surely be conjured by some magic of the future, by some monster loom belching smoke, like all the progress of Jedediah’s age… It’s not the right answer but he’s successfully distracted himself, so at least his nerves are calmer.

_What do you feel?_

Well, below the cloth there is warmth, Jedidiah’s warmth.  Dare he say that?

Jed doesn’t prompt him, he just sighs and releases his hand from where it was holding Oct’s in place. Octavius is thrown into a dilemma of whether he should move his hand now or if he can leave it there on Jed’s chest.  He doesn’t want to move it. Why should he? Jed put it there.  And he still hasn’t answered the question. Now his heart has calmed and he feels the steady beat of another under his hand.

Jed is pulling his gloves off. This shouldn’t have any effect on Octavius, especially since he can’t even see Jed’s hands in the dark. Still, it unnerves him because he has no idea where this is going. The only time he had ever caught a glimpse of Jed’s fingers was that one time when he saw him playing guitar -- which was a revelation in itself -- and even then he wore gloves, but the sort with the fingers cut off.  It started a fascination to see more; one that slowely led to wondering what those fingers might feel like.

Before Octavius can guess what’s coming, Jed’s bare hand is on his neck, at the most vulnerable point, in the depression above his breast plate. Startled, Oct snatches his own hand back and grabs at Jed’s warm bare one.  

Had they been fighting he would be now be at this man’s mercy. He'd fought with Jed for years in the time before Larry, hand to hand even.  All that shared past echoes in this moment.

But a fight is not what Jed wants, he’s too gentle.  Octavius doesn’t understand, this is neither violent nor amorous. Its… inquisitive.  Jed moves his hand as though searching for something. Then he stops, fingertips resting just on his pulse point so they both feel his heartbeat. Octavius can’t stop his heart from speeding up again at the touch and at this instant of pure vulnerability.

Jed lets out a low whistle

 “Liar.” He breathes.  Its more affectionate than accusatory and its right in Octavius' ear.

“What?”

“All this time” Jed moves a finger in a caress on his neck and Octavius knows he is lost. 

“I knew it.”

“What?”

“That there heartbeat.” And Jed runs the finger up the length of his neck between armor and hairline. ”You’re like me.” Octavius can’t work out if he’s talking having a heartbeat at all or the way his is racing crazily again. Its making it very difficult for him to get any words out at all. Fortunately, Jed concludes “We’re real.”

Well of course they’re real, as long as the magic lasts they function as any human might, albeit at a different scale. Just take Jed’s reaction to being poked with the point of a sword, or his breath visible in the air on a cold winter’s night long ago, trudging back to the museum though the snow (that same breath he can feel hot on his ear right now). Most of all, Octavius rememebers Jed's barely veiled terror of suffocation in Kahmenrah’s prison.

“Yes.” he replies, and tries to infuse it with warmth and simple joy, rather than the sense that this fact should be obvious.

“You’ve truly got a heart that ain’t never been no metaphor.” He hears Jed’s smile and relief washes though him.

The weight he feels on his other shoulder is Jed’s arm encircling him. He struggles to keep his voice steady as he replies.

“You wouldn’t have believed you would drown in the sand if you didn’t breathe.” Now is the crucial moment, but he can hardly be blamed for misreading the signs in total darkness. Purely on instinct he says, “Or wouldn’t be so scared of love, if you had no heart.”

 “Who’s scared?” retorts Jed, but still only a little over a whisper. And the hand pulling at the ties of his helmet is the only warning he gets before Jed shifts his weight and leans in to kiss him.

And Octavius finally understands that answering a question like ‘ _What do you feel_?’ doesn't need words at all.

 

END

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> The title refers to Octavius' line in the first film "We may be small but are hearts are large, metaphorically speaking."
> 
> By the way, this is what my writing looks like unbetaed. So, for anybody who might like to claim me for big bang betaing this is the sort of thing you'd be faced with!


End file.
